Clark County officials address election security concerns as 2024 primary approaches

Ballots for Washington’s Aug. 6 primary election have been mailed. With that, the countdown to the November election begins in earnest.

That means voters are about to be inundated with claims — some true and some false — about the security and integrity of election administrative processes.

To help voters gain a better understanding about some persistent claims made in Clark County, The Columbian spoke with election administration officials, critics of local election processes and the Clark County League of Women Voters.

1. Voter registration

As is happening at the national level, some local residents are concerned people who entered the country illegally have registered to vote.

“Currently, in Washington state, bypassing the citizenship requirement only requires checking a box. With the only deterrent, arrest and prosecution, being voluntarily removed by prosecutors, this opens the door to massive vulnerabilities,” said Rob Anderson, the founder of a group called Reform Clark County and a regular critic of Clark County election administrative processes.

Under state law, voters must be a citizen of the United States, be a resident of the state, be at least 18 years old (future voters can preregister at age 16 or 17), not be disqualified due to a court order and not be incarcerated in a state or federal prison.

However, the role elections staff can take to verify citizenship is limited. As long as the person registering to vote presents a valid driver’s license or state-issued identification card, staff must accept it.

“We are required to accept voter registration forms based on the information presented to us on that document. That’s true for voter registration forms, it’s true for declaration of candidacy forms. We do not have the authority to investigate allegations of fraudulent actions related to voter registration,” Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said.

Anderson said most of the issues around voter registration rolls will have to be addressed by the Legislature, not the local elections office.

Cleaning up the voter roll was among the reforms listed on Anderson’s failed “Restore Election Confidence” initiative, which called for removal of deceased individuals, voters who have moved out of the county or who are otherwise ineligible to vote, to be completed 30 days prior to ballots being mailed.

Kimsey said the voter registration database is already updated daily. He said elections staff want the database to be as accurate as it possibly can be.

“We have full-time staff here at the elections office who are updating the voter registration database on a continuing basis,” Kimsey said. “The elections administration process, including the voter registration process, is administered under a set of very comprehensive federal and state laws. Changing a voter’s status — active, inactive or canceled — can only be done under very limited set of circumstances.”

Kimsey said when a voter’s status can be changed, whether it’s from active to inactive or inactive to canceled, is also defined by state and federal law.

One way the elections office gets information about a voter’s status is the U.S. Postal Service. Ballots returned to the county office can include information about whether a voter has moved, where they have moved to, whether the person is deceased or it may note the ballot is simply undeliverable.

He said what often happens is a person moves to another state but doesn’t inform their local elections office. Ballots are still mailed to the voter, at their address on file, and the people at that address receive that ballot but don’t do anything with it.

“What they don’t do is give it back to the post office and say, ‘This person doesn’t live here.’ Or they don’t contact the elections office,” Kimsey said. “If we don’t get any information that a voter has moved, we can’t make them inactive.”

The county also has access to VoteWa, which is managed by the Office of the Secretary of State. That system collects data from a variety of sources, such as the state Department of Health, which issues death certificates.

But no system or database is perfect, Kimsey said. If someone dies in another state or outside of the country, that jurisdiction may not issue a death certificate nor notify the Washington health office. This means a deceased voter can be left on the voter rolls.

Edri Geiger from the Clark County League of Women Voters said she’s also heard concerns expressed by voters about the voter rolls.

She said she’s heard instances of ballots going out to “voters who are dead, or they moved, or they’re at college and that’s their residence, or they’re in the service and that’s their residence.”

It’s important to remember there are instances where a voter’s registration information may not be publicly available, Geiger said, but they are still registered to vote.

“That would be people like a woman who was being abused and is keeping her address as a safe location,” Geiger said.

The state’s Address Confidentiality Program allows domestic abuse victims and others, such as law enforcement, judges and prosecutors, to keep their voter registration information confidential.

2. Computer network

The Electronic Registration Information Center — commonly known as the ERIC system — is a public, nonprofit membership organization comprised of 24 states, including Washington.

ERIC helps states improve voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.

It uses voter registration data and motor vehicle data submitted by partner states — as well as the Social Security Administration death data and change of address data from the U.S. Postal Service — to provide reports that identify potentially inaccurate or out-of-date voter registration records, deceased voters and possible cases of illegal voting.

ERIC has become the subject of conspiracy theories. For example, some claim the system’s origins are questionable because it was founded by state election officials with financial assistance from the nonprofit Pew Foundation. (ERIC is currently owned, funded and managed by the participating states, each of which has a vote on the board of directors.)

Member states use reports from ERIC — in compliance with federal and state laws — to contact voters for the purpose of updating their record or removing ineligible or deceased voters from the rolls.

Contrary to some claims, ERIC does not directly register voters, cancel voter registrations or update voter information.

“To have good voter rolls, we need ERIC,” said Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat.

Some states have pulled out of ERIC due to these claims, but some Republican secretaries of state have defended the system.

“We have Republican secretaries of state out there that are standing up to these false narratives,” Hobbs said, pointing to Brad Raffensperger of Georgia. Hobbs added the system works better when more states participate because it increases the amount of information shared between states.

“States that prioritize best practices and actual election integrity over politics are going to stay in ERIC and have clearer and more accurate voter rolls than those that choose to leave,” Raffensperger said in a statement.

The Clark County Elections Office uses information provided by ERIC. However, ERIC is not part of the county’s computer network.

In fact, the ballot scanning and tabulation computers do not have wired or wireless internet connection capabilities and are not part of a computer network. The balloting computers only allow specific U.S. Election Assistance Commission-approved programs and software to run on them.

The computers run in kiosk mode, which prevents users from installing, uninstalling or modifying existing software. They also have USB port blockers. They are kept inside locked and sealed cages inside of a locked and sealed room that requires card access to enter. At least two elections staff members must be present to enter the room.

Additionally, the tabulation computer is kept within a sealed and locked closet within that room.

The Washington State Republican Party platform calls for hand-counted paper ballots and eliminating digital ballot scanning and machine tabulation.

That system is unrealistic, according to Kimsey.

To count ballots by hand, the elections office would need to operate out of the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds to support the 500 to 1,000 election workers who would need to be hired, Kimsey said.

Even then, it would be difficult for the human tabulators to meet statutory deadlines, he added.

Hand counting is more likely to produce errors, and without a machine count to compare the results of the hand count with, it would be difficult to confirm the results of a recount, Kimsey said.

That means multiple recounts would be needed to confirm most contests, and each recount would again require bringing on 500 to 1,000 election workers.

“The accuracy of that would be horrible,” Kimsey said.

3. Signature verification

In each election in Clark County, hundreds of ballots are rejected because the signature on the affidavit envelope doesn’t match the signatures already on file. When a resident registers to vote, they must sign the form. Those signatures are kept on file for later comparison.

But some, including County Councilor Gary Medvigy, have questioned why so many ballots get rejected. Of course, mismatched signatures are not the only reason. Signatures can be missing or ballots may arrive with postmarks too late to be counted, for example.

“For every election, we have very detailed records on the number of ballots not counted and the reasons why they’re not counted,” Kimsey said.

“The ones that do the signatures and verify them, they’ve had extensive training,” Geiger said, of elections office staffers.

Anderson said his concerns are less with the verification process itself but how the elections office works.

“Signature verification is vital to validating ballots, and some groups are trying to remove this, which would be disastrous. In Clark County, the biggest problem is that the auditor shuts down signature verification at 5 p.m., delaying results,” Anderson said, adding that extending staff working hours a few times a year should be an easy call.

How many ballots are rejected? The number varies for each election. For the 2022 general election, 210,697 ballots were received, and 207,456 were counted, leaving 3,241 ballots rejected.

Voters can be contacted and given a chance to “cure” their ballots by, for example, providing a valid signature. Kimsey said the county does not track how many ballots are cured (corrected) in each election. Detailed reconciliation reports for each election are available online at https://clark.wa.gov/elections/results.

“There’s probably 30 different reasons why they’re not counted,” Kimsey said. “It’s important to know that if a ballot is challenged because of a signature issue, the voter is contacted and given information on how to cure that ballot.”

Voters are contacted by mail, phone and email, when possible, explaining why their ballot was rejected and how the issue can be corrected. Ballots that are not fixed are reviewed by the three-member canvassing board before election results are certified.

“They have the option to come in. … They can write their signature down, and they can confirm that’s them,” Geiger said. “They can do that all the way up to day of the certification.” (Certification typically takes place at least 10 days after the election; the Aug. 6 results are expected to be certified Aug. 20.)

Of course, signatures can change over time. Age, illness, injury or even environmental factors can affect how you sign your name.

Kimsey said he supports making the ballot curing process easier for voters.

“I do believe that about 80 percent of the ballots that are challenged and not counted actually were signed by the voter,” he said. “From about 18 years of age to your late 20s, your signature changes a lot.”

If it has been several years since you registered to vote, or you have reason to believe your signature has changed, you can file an updated signature form with the elections office.

4. Audits

Before every election, the Clark County Elections Office performs testing on its machines to ensure they are tabulating correctly and to confirm the software meets federal standards.

The county also performs a logic and accuracy test prior to each election that consists of a set of ballots marked in a predetermined pattern. The test confirms all precincts, candidates, ballot measures and write-ins are tabulating correctly.

Following each election, the county conducts a manual count comparison audit. This is a hand recount of about 600 ballots. The results of the hand count are compared with the results of the machine count to confirm the machine count is correct.

This November, the county will also conduct a risk limiting audit in conjunction with the state to confirm that ballot processing software and hardware performed properly.

But why doesn’t the elections office conduct a “full forensic audit” following each election?

“There is nothing in federal or state law that defines what a forensic audit is,” Kimsey said. “Forensic simply means it’s admissible as evidence in the court. I am confident that the audits we do would be admissible to a court.”

Kimsey added the best test of the integrity and accuracy of an election administration process is a recount.

“That’s the gold standard,” he said. “Anyone who has questions about the accuracy of the results of an election should call for a recount.”

In the past 25 years, every recount conducted by the elections office has confirmed the original results, Kimsey said.

Recounts typically discover a few ballots that are invalid due to voters not following instructions, according to Kimsey.

“Out of 100,000 ballots, maybe we’re talking 10 votes that are the result of voters not following instructions, or a few errors by ballot election workers,” he said.

Anderson argues “there has never been a systemwide post-election audit performed by the auditor in Clark County.”

In response, Kimsey cited the manual count comparison audit conducted after each election.

Anderson also argued the recounts of 2022 demonstrated an alarming ballot error rate.

Kimsey agrees an error was made in 2022. During the recount, it was discovered two ballots were not run through the tabulating system due to an error made by an election worker.

“It was a bad mistake,” Kimsey said.

However, the mistake was a human error, Kimsey added, and it had “nothing to do with the ability of the software to accurately scan ballots and tabulate results.”

The elections office has developed procedures to ensure that a similar mistake does not happen again, he said. He also noted there will inevitably be human errors that occur in the future, but that necessary action will be taken to ensure errors are not repeated.

Election observers

Whether Clark County elections officials and staff are doing a good job of keeping elections honest, open and fair depends on whom you ask.